


More Of Us

by angelsdemonsducks



Series: canon era elams au [1]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: ALL THE FLUFF, Canon Era, Everybody Lives, F/M, Fluff, M/M, Polyamory, Polyamory Negotiations, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-22
Updated: 2016-10-22
Packaged: 2018-08-24 00:08:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8348257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelsdemonsducks/pseuds/angelsdemonsducks
Summary: More than a year after he is killed in South Carolina, John Laurens shows up on the Hamiltons' doorstep.





	

It is half-past six when the knock sounds at the door.

For a moment, she thinks it is Alexander, and perhaps that is why she goes to answer the door herself, leaving Philip to be watched over by the maid. But she knows even before she places a hand on the knob that it cannot be the case. Her husband is so rarely home before seven, and he would not knock on the door of his own house.

It is a cold night, though. Whoever has come calling must have a good reason for braving the elements. Keeping that in mind, Eliza opens the door, plastering a pleasant smile on her face.

The man who stands on the doorstep is unfamiliar to her. He is of average height, with a handsome, freckled face, though there are hollows under his eyes that she recognizes all too well from the days and months after her husband came home from the war. His coat is torn and frayed and several sizes too big for him. _He must be chilled to the bone,_ she thinks, and allows her smile to become a little more authentic. He returns the smile hesitantly but genuinely, and the corners of his eyes crinkle. The expression suits him; whatever he is now, he was once a happy man.

“I’m sorry for bothering you at this late hour, ma’am,” he says, his voice revealing the faintest twang of a Southern accent, “but I was told this is the Hamilton residence?”

She nods. He must be a newcomer to the city; Alexander has made a name for himself as one of the best lawyers in the northern states, and their place of residence is fairly well known amongst the locals. “I am Mrs. Hamilton,” she tells him, and watches his body language change, stiffen, his eyes grow wide in either surprise or alarm.

“I… ah…” His hand flies to the trim of his coat, his fingers deftly playing with the worn threads. “Ah, your husband is not home, is he?” he asks, and Eliza frowns. Definitely not a local.

“My husband usually returns from his office around seven, or a quarter past.” _And would come home later than that if I didn’t force the issue._ “Is this a legal matter?”

“Ah…” He prevaricates, his fingers moving quicker. A nervous tick, perhaps? “Ah. No. I’m afraid I’ve been a bit rude. My apologies.” He bows slightly. “My name is John Laurens, a friend of your husband’s. Perhaps he has mentioned me?” He looks up at that, hope written all over his face, and he clasps her hand in a warm handshake that she only just manages to return, as if he hasn’t just sent her reeling.

_Mentioned you? He_ loved _you. He still does, if the way he reads and rereads your letters is any indication._

But she cannot say that, not in so public a setting. Even though they are the only two souls in sight, she cannot know that no one is listening. “I read him the letter that spoke of your demise,” she settles on, recovering as quickly as she can, and takes petty satisfaction in the way he flinches. She has struck a blow, a grievous one, and she will strike several more before the night passes if she has her way. This man broke her husband’s heart, after all. “Please, come in,” she continues, stepping back and holding the door open wide. He swallows visibly, tensely.

“I could not possibly impose,” he protests, albeit weakly.

She opens the door wider. “I insist, Mr. Laurens,” she states. “You’ll catch your death of cold if you stay out here, and my husband will be home within the hour.” He flinches again, though at what part she is not certain. It seems odd, now that she thinks about it, that his clothing is so threadbare. Surely, Henry Laurens would not allow his only surviving son to be out in the New York winter dressed as he is.

_Unless Henry Laurens doesn’t know._

Whatever the case may be, Laurens gives up his resistance and steps into the foyer, relaxing slightly at the warmth. She takes his coat, hangs it, and leads him into the sitting room, where the maid is minding Philip. Hannah stands when Eliza enters the room, her eyes flitting from her mistress to the stranger walking behind her. Philip, gathered in Hannah’s arms, also watches them curiously, sucking determinedly at his thumb. Eliza steps forward to take her child. “Mr. Laurens is an old family friend,” she says. “Please ensure that another plate is set out for dinner.”

Hannah nods and practically flees the room. “She will gossip,” Laurens says dispassionately.

“Yes,” she agrees, “but there is always gossip. Harmless; what can gossip do?” She turns to face him, and his eyes snap down to the child in her arms. As if in a trance, he steps forward.

“Is that-” he breathes, and she nods.

“This is our son, Philip,” she tells him. “Alexander was very excited for you to meet him.” he doesn’t even seem to hear her, all his attention being taken up by the boy. Philip watches him curiously, deems him acceptable, and reaches out with one tiny first to grip his nose. Laurens’ face lights up, delighted, and for the first time, Eliza sees the man Alexander must have fallen for. She watches as the man reaches up and, with one gentle finger, taps the tip of Philip’s nose. Her son giggles, and she cannot help but smile. “Philip,” she says, “this is John Laurens. Can you say hello to him?”

Philip pauses for a moment, considering. “Ha,” he says. “Jalans.”

Laurens laughs, a real, wholesome laugh. “Hello to you too, Philip,” he says. “You look a lot like your father.” And with that, the atmosphere takes on a heavier tone, both of them remembering why Laurens is here. At length, Eliza sighs.

“Please,” she directs, “sit.” Laurens does so slowly, perching on the edge of his seat like a bird prepared for flight. She takes the chair across from the one he has chosen, balancing Philip on her lap. “I apologize for any mess, but I was not expecting visitors today.”

He winces at that. “Least of all me,” he finishes wryly. “I understand. I have heard that I am generally considered to be dead. How such a mistake could be made…” He trails off, making a helpless gesture with his hands. “I have some idea, though I fear it is not conversation suited for polite company.”

“Alexander has told me some of the war,” she murmurs. “I can imagine well enough.” Though he did not tell her willingly; she teased the truth out of him after countless nights of being woken by his silent sobs. The war took a greater toll on him than he ever liked to admit, and he never wanted to worry her with any of the horrors he had seen. But she refused to allow him to bear the burden of his memories on his own, and so she coaxed him to tell her of what troubled him so. The whole experience was rather like teaching a wild animal how to trust, a long and arduous process, but she has never regretted it. Now, when her husband is jerked from a nightmare in the small hours of the morning, she knows how to comfort him, how to soothe him and put him back to sleep.

No, she cannot regret that. Even though that means she knows things that she would perhaps rather she didn’t. Such as the ways a corpse might be made unrecognizable. A too-well-aimed blast of cannon fire, the hard hooves of horses trampling all that lies on the ground, lengthy exposure to the elements. Any of these might make proving a body’s identity to be an uncertain business at best. One man can easily be mistaken for another once they are both dead.

“I suppose you can,” Laurens says after a long pause. “I am afraid that I was in no condition to rectify the matter. Physically, I healed, but mentally, I…” He swallows, blinking rapidly. “I, ah, was not at all recovered until recently.” He looks down at his hands, which he has clasped tightly in his lap, and looks up at her through long lashes. “Ale- Hamilton was the first person I thought to visit when I came back to myself. I hope I have not made you uncomfortable?” he ends hesitantly, a frown hovering about his face.

She makes the executive decision to ignore the last sentence. “Because you are in love with him,” she says frankly, and raises an eyebrow when Laurens jumps to his feet, the very picture of panic. “Do sit down, Mr. Laurens. You’ll alarm Philip.” Philip is not alarmed, seemingly content to watch the drama unfold with a fist stuffed in his mouth, but Laurens in all his disarray does not seem to pick up on that. He sits back down heavily, practically folding in on himself. His face has gone as white as a sheet.

“I beg your pardon, Mrs. Hamilton,” he says, his voice trembling. “I… I do not think I should have come here.” He makes an aborted motion as if to rise again, but stops when Eliza points a finger at him.

“If when my husband comes home I have to tell him that you have come back from the dead only to leave before he returned, no one will be having a good evening,” she says. “Sit down and stay there, if you please.”

Laurens sinks back into the chair as far as he can go, as if willing it to swallow him up, and watches her with fear painted all over his face. He is like an open book, this man, rather like Alexander in this respect. She sighs.

“Make no mistake, Mr. Laurens,” she says, “if I thought that my husband’s feelings for you had any bearing on his love for me, we would not be having this conversation. But our marriage, and our love for each other, is secure, so here we sit.” Though, that would not always have been the case; when she first put the pieces together, figured out that she was not the only one Alexander loved, she was furious. She felt that their marriage was a farce intended to hide his affair, that he was only using her for his own ends.

But those feelings passed with time. And she came to realize that just as he devoted his heart to Laurens, he also devoted his heart to her. Alexander, it seemed, was a rare creature, one whose heart was not built to give love to only one person, but whose love was no less potent for that. Whether or not he loved John Laurens, he also loved her, and she found that to be enough.

“Then what is it you would have of me?” Laurens asks hoarsely. “I would have thought you’d want me gone from your household, if you know the truth of what lies between us. And yet you have told me to stay.”

Eliza regards him. “I must admit, this is not a situation that I had planned for,” she confesses. “Not after we received word of your death. But it seems to me that the solution here is simple. We both love Alexander, and he loves both of us. Could an arrangement not be made?”

His jaw works silently for a few moments before he can reply. “What… what are you saying?” he rasps. “You would want… you would want to… I don’t…”

She closes her eyes. Breathes: in, out, in. Opens them again. “You were not there,” she says quietly, keeping her voice deceptively gentle to mask the fire that rages within her. “You were not there, Mr. Laurens, when that letter came. You did not see him after I read it to him.” She breaks off, remembering. He was devastated, his face blank but for the tears beginning to stream down his cheeks and the broken light in his eyes. _“I have so much work to do,”_ he said, and shut her out as he grieved. She did not see him for days after that, and when he finally emerged from his office, he was a shadow, as if Laurens took his soul with him to the afterlife when he perished.

“A piece of him _died_ when he discovered that you were gone,” she begins again, surprising herself with her vehemence. “Your death _silenced_ him, Laurens. So verbose, so eager to express his thoughts on any other subject, but he _refused_ to speak on your death but for a few letters sent out to acquaintances. Can you possibly understand the implications of that?”

Judging from his face, his stunned, open, heartbroken expression, Laurens understands the implications quite well. And in that moment, Eliza makes up her mind.

“I could grow very fond of you, I think, if given the chance,” she says. “I am going to have the guest bedroom made up, for appearances’ sake at least, and you will stay with us. No one will begrudge us offering a place to live for an old friend still recovering from the war. People may talk, but people always talk.”

Laurens stares at her. “I… Mrs. Hamilton… I cannot possibly…”

She narrows her eyes and adopts one of the expressions that her sister has taught her, the one Angelica says ‘tells the men that you’re going to have your way and there is nothing they can do about it.’ “I will brook no argument on this matter,” she states. “Unless we discover that it is impossible for this arrangement to work, we are going to try this. And Mr. Laurens, please-” She softens her tone- “you must call me Eliza.”

Laurens blinks, looking like he no longer has any idea what is happening. “I, but,” he stammers, “then you must call me John, of course, but I don’t know that-”

She is saved from having to deflect any further protestations. Several rooms away, the front door opens with an audible swish and the unmistakable sound of footsteps. Alexander’s voice rings through the house: “Darling, I’m home!” and some part of her relaxes, while another part of her tenses. She cannot predict how this reunion will go. She stands, placing Philip in a surprised Laurens’-- no, _John’s_ ; if he is going to be staying for the foreseeable future, then she must adjust to calling him by his first name-- lap.

“In the sitting room, dear!” she calls, and his footsteps approach.

He sweeps into the room like a hurricane, as always. He doesn’t even seem to register the fact that there is another person in the room; he gravitates directly to her side, picking her up and spinning her around in an embrace. He smiles widely at her, planting a kiss on her cheek. “My dearest Betsey,” he says, “you are a most welcome sight at the end of a long day.”

A long day indeed. The dark circles under his eyes are prominent, and she has to wonder if he is merely feigning sleep by her side. She makes a mental note to ask Aaron to keep a watchful eye on him at work. “As are you, dear,” she says, and forces herself to step back. “We have a visitor.”

Alexander starts, confirming her earlier suspicion. It is only then that he seems to realize John is in the room. “Ah, my apologies,” he starts, walking forward-- and then draws himself up short, a strangled gasp escaping from between his lips. His eyes widen almost comically. Eliza has to admit, they make quite a sight: a dead man sitting in a comfortable armchair, their son seemingly determined to tug all of his hair out of his ponytail. From the way he is holding him, John clearly has no idea how to handle a child. But his eyes are for Alexander and Alexander alone.

She should leave the room, she thinks. This should be a private conversation between the two of them. Yet, here she stands, somehow unable to make herself move. Whatever comes next, she will bear witness to it.

There is silence for a long moment, a moment that seems to span years and years. Even Philip quiets his babble. Alexander takes one more step forward, the action aborted. He makes as if to reach out, but his hand drops to his side again just as quickly. “ _Laurens?_ ” he whispers after a pregnant pause, as if any louder sound will make the man disappear.

John manages a strained smile. “Hello Hamilton,” he says. “Nice kid you’ve got here.”

“He takes after his mother,” Alexander replies absently. Eliza can sense his mind working, flying through theories as to _how this is possible_ and discarding each one. His first instinct was likely to believe that this was some sort of illusion, but the clear contact between John and Philip would dismiss that thought soon enough.

She sees the exact moment the realization hits, hears the desperate noise he makes in the back of his throat as he accepts that this might be real. She moves momentarily between them to take Philip out of the way. John relinquishes him without protest, his gaze still fixed upon her husband.

And then, the stillness in the room is broken, whatever trance was holding Alexander in place shattered. He rushes forward in a flurry of limbs, all but collapsing at the foot of the chair. His hands reach out, searching, seeking, and cover John’s, squeezing them quickly and tightly, as if he expects to hold a ghost (and perhaps he does). John inhales sharply, and Alexander makes a bewildered sound halfway between a laugh and a whimper. “This is real,” he whispers. “My god, this is real?” He looks up at John’s face, reaching up to trace his face with trembling fingers, tracking over every line, connecting the other man’s freckles in patterns Eliza instinctively knows he has traced before. “You’re… John?”

John nods shakily and slides off the chair to kneel on the floor in front of him, his movements cautious and jerky. “My deepest apologies, Alexander, for making you wait so long.”

Alexander takes in a shuddering breath, and leans in until their foreheads are touching. He wraps one hand around the back of John’s neck. “For you, I would have waited for…” He breaks off, choking on a sob. “My god, John, what happened to you? I thought you were… that letter, it said that… my god, you’re far too thin. Have you been eating? You’ll stay for dinner tonight, won’t you?”

“Your wife isn’t giving me any choice in the matter,” John says wryly.

It is only then that Alexander seems to remember that she is in the room. He jerks back from John and turns his head to stare at her. Panic is written across his face, the same panic that was so clearly displayed on John’s features scarce moments ago.

“Eliza, Betsey, I, ah, well, I suppose you met John, then, ah-”

She cuts him off with a laugh, shaking her head. “Alexander Hamilton, lost for words,” she says. “John, you should have come sooner. Darling, I have been well aware of your… proclivities, and if you thought me blind to what lay between you and John Laurens, you are sorely mistaken.”

Alexander blinks. Registers the words, the tone. “You… are not angry?” he ventures. “Wait a moment, surely I was not that obvious.”

She sighs. “Not to others, perhaps, but Alexander, you locked yourself in your study and wouldn’t come out or talk to anybody for days. Half the time, I was not unconvinced that you had starved yourself to death.”

“Alexander, you did wha-”

Alexander raises a hand, cutting the other man off. “So…” he says. “You knew. And you are not angry with me? And you…” He glances back and forth between the two of them. “Like each other? You’re friends now?”

There is a childlike hope dawning on his face, and she and John exchange glances. “Yes,” she says, “I am certain we can manage that much, at the very least.” The implications are not lost on John, judging from his blush, but for once, the subtlety is completely lost on Alexander. His face spreads into a wide smile, and it is like the dawn is breaking. Eliza had not realized how long it has been since she last saw her husband joyful-- not happy, she has seen him happy, but joyful, well and truly joyful and beaming.

Whatever else happens in this situation, whatever the outcome may be, it has been well worth it to see Alexander smile like this.

She shakes her head and balances Philip on her hip. “I am going to the kitchen to see that dinner is well in hand,” she tells the both of them. “Take some time to reacquaint yourselves.” She leaves the room before they can decide whether that has a double meaning or not.

She catches snatches of their conversation as she walks down the hallway.

“-not who I used to be-”

“-doesn’t matter-”

“-dangerous-”

“-told Lafayette or Mulligan-”

“-I’m so _happy_ you’re-”

And she smiles to herself. Somehow, she thinks everything is going to work.

**Author's Note:**

> And John and Eliza fall in love with each other too and they all live happily ever after. No Reynolds affair. Philip doesn’t die. Hamilton and Burr remain friends and the Weehawken break up never happens. Hamilton is elected president or something like that. Because I said so, that’s why. Can you guys tell how much I (don’t) care about historical accuracy? 
> 
> You have no idea how tempting it was to put the reunion in Hamilton or Laurens' pov. Like, I almost did it. But it ended up not happening because I felt like it was jarring to do that after over 2,000 words in Eliza’s pov. I might write a self-indulgent thing someday in which I do tell that scene from their povs, but for now, I’m marking this as complete.
> 
> Anyway, there’s not nearly enough canon era Elams, so I hope you enjoyed. :)
> 
> Edit: Okay, so there is now a rather Laurens-centric sequel, if you want to [check that out](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8634025). More will likely be forthcoming whenever the mood strikes me.


End file.
